The Minister of Transport and Highways and Minister of Mass Media, Bandula Gunawardena stated that a brand-new train schedule will be carried out at the beginning of February, according to the offered capability in Railway Department.

He made this remark at the Ministerial consultative Committee on Transport and Highways which met at the parliament just recently (Jan.

05) under his chairmanship.

Apart from that, the possibility of purchasing tickets 100% online for long-distance train services with tourist destinations such as Ella-Odyssey was also talked about at the conference.

Minister Gunawardena likewise pointed out that the train services have not been cancelled due to the retirement of the employees as reported by the media.

The officials, who were present, have explained that, even if a specific number of trains were to be cancelled due to the retirement of Railway Department authorities, the figure was not as high as reported.

The officials likewise said that although a little number of train journeys were cancelled, it was revealed as a large quantity by the media.

Speaking even more, the Minister stated that due to the arrival of more travelers at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in Katunayake, more trains had to be deployed in the past few days to supply fuel, and because of that, the train journeys had to be restricted to a certain extent.

Likewise, the minister asked the officers present about the possibility of ending the cancellation of trains by the end of this month due to the retirement of authorities.

They also said that only 10 train motorists had actually retired at the end of in 2015.

The committee also approved the regulations published in the Gazette Extraordinary No.

2287/28 of 07 July 2022, made by the Minister of Transport and Highways and Minister of Mass Media under the Motor Traffic Act.

State Ministers Lasantha Alagiyawanna, Siripala Gamlath, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, Anuradha Jayaratne, Shanta Bandara, Diana Gamage, Members of Parliament Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Mujibur Rahman, S.

Adeikalanathan, Madhura Withanage, Sampath Athukorala, Prof.

Ranjith Bandara, Mudita Prishanthi de Soyza, Premnath C.

Dolawatta, Upul Mahendra Rajapaksa, Gunathilaka Rajapaksa, Sumit Udukumbura and Manjula Dissanayake were also present at the committee, the Department of Communications of the Parliament said.